Congress cannot claim credit for cut in GST rates, Sitharaman

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today came down heavily on Congress while questioning the Congress claiming credit for reduction in GST rates. She asked “Is the GST Council under them?”

Interacting with media she said the party should first finalise its stand on the tax regime“Congress wants to take credit on GST and being in opposition, they also want to say that government took action because of them. They should decide what their position is.”

Her statement was in response to a statement of the Congress that the decision to cut GST rates was a vindication of its stand on an 18 per cent cap on tax under the regime. Sitharaman said Congress wants to take credit for the new tax regime and also wants to criticise it.

The GST Council has all state Finance Ministers part of it. The Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley) might be the chairman, but all states are there and their issues were raised. If someone was dissatisfied, we being a sensitive government were forthcoming in making changes. We did it for the people.

“Would they also accept criticism for not being able to implement GST for a decade? Since 2004 to 2013, they could not take the state governments in confidence. The states did not trust the Central government,” she said.

Coming to Gujarat politics she said that it seems that the opposition for Gujarat and Gujaratis was in the DNA of Congress party.

Sitharaman said that Congress party hampered the Narmada project despite the favourable decisions of the control authority. On various important public issues the opposition party in the state did not cooperate with the government in taking it up with the union government of the UPA.

‘If spoken metaphorically, opposition of Gujarat was in the DNA of Congress,’ she said. She said that after continuous opposition of Gujarat how its leaders were now facing the people here. They were also issuing any statement without thinking about it. She said that even the erstwhile Congress government at center did not cooperate properly with Gujarat in sensitive border issues.

POPULAR CATEGORY

This website is headed by Yogesh Sharma , former Chief Reporter of Indian Express having media experience of more than 35 years. Our news team is headed by Neha Amin, a senior journalist covering Gujarat events for more than 25 years.
We also offer content service right from Gujarat focused content to article and book writing.